Tuesday, December 30, 2008

We hope all of you had a great Christmas...we sure did! The boys were so patient having the presents under the tree and not being allowed to open them. They were pretty excited when Christmas morning came. I think at one point during the middle of the night, Rowen woke at 2am saying "I need to get up, I think Santa brought presents for me!"

The boys ended up sleeping until around 7:30 and then it was present time!! They both got the usual boy stuff: trains, helicopter, tow trucks, anything and everything in the transportation category!

I didn't think the boys would want to take a nap, with all the excitement of new toys but they did! And that was a good thing (when is it not?) because we had Christmas dinner plans and I didn't want them to be cranky :)

Our friends, Jeff and Tiffany Weigle, graciously invited us to their home and they cooked quite a feast!! I hope to one day be able to whip up those dishes like she did! And it was all SO yummy! We had a special Japanese Christmas cake for dessert. It's a white cake with mandarin oraanges inside and a delicious light frosting on the outside. It is topped with strawberries and a Japanese Christmas decoration.

**Side note...Strawberries are very popular during the holiday season in Japan because they top their Christmas cakes with them. But it's not really the season to grow strawberries...so I've heard they grow them in hot houses just so they will have them to top the cakes! Of course, they also sell them in the stores at ridiculously high prices ($6-$7/quart) but that doesn't stop Rowen's mouth from basically watering in the grocery store and insisting that I buy 2 or 3 quarts!!! so he can have "lots of strawberries" at home to eat!Thank you Japanese strawberry growers for taking ALL our money b/c our kids LOVE your juicy strawberries in Dec.!!**End of side note**

Anyway, we enjoyed the Japanese Christmas cake as well as other desserts at the Weigles dinner party. And our kids had such a blast playing with all the other children there too.We couldn't thank Jeff and Tiffany enough for inviting us to their home on Christmas! I feel pretty fortunate to have met them in the short time we've lived here and look forward to sharing more 'family' holidays with them :)